So to challenge myself creatively – in both the approach as well as expected results – I forced short sketch sessions upon myself. Getting in the occasional exploration.

“Reflect on expressing the current frame of mind through imagery. Take a befit fragment of lyrics, a limited amount of time and just see what happens. Zero expectations, absolute curiosity.”

Some pieces work. Some don’t. All are exhilarating.
Mentally I’ve started growing a collection of possible exhibit pieces.

Follow me on Instagram for updates on undoubtedly more to come or to find the lyrics behind those pieces that hold them. Admittingly: with the last one I started to provide my own frame.

The graphic design of “Experimental self-expressive artworks” was made by Maarten Kleijne: Maarten Kleijne.

Aside from the front and back cover I ended up designing two types of chapter spreads: one for the main level chapters and one for subchapter parts. In this we wanted to really push the printing company’s abilities and the results came out stunning. After that we wanted to fully utilize all options, so we even added spot UV to accentuate specific areas of the exterior cover.

Honestly: at first I went for the obvious. The title being “Traditional and novel diagnostic techniques to assess wound infection” I visualized several apparatus. Upon realizing this was too direct and it also just wasn’t graphically pleasing I decided to approach an abstract artwork that felt closer to my own work. Which is the result you see before you, a design approach to the microscopic level of an infection.

To Marieke: being awarded with such an incredible achievement is something you can be extremely proud of. I absolutely enjoyed your ”running a marathon” comparison to it and to this very day I wonder if it does justice to however hard it must’ve been. But whether it is or not: you did it!

The graphic design of “Marieke — Medical Dissertation” was made by Maarten Kleijne: Maarten Kleijne.

This project also contained a new “first” for me, namely the limited edition 180g unique mixed blue, white & black coloured vinyl. It was the first coloured vinyl I’ve designed and I’m truly stoked about the result.

I’ve also made a complete custom WordPress site, that’s fully responsive and optimized for display on any and all (mobile) devices. Also including several integrations with third-party services such as SoundCloud and YouTube. All to create an amazing online band website experience.

→ Riders of the Universe band website

The graphic design of “Riders of the Universe — Amen Road” was made by Maarten Kleijne: Maarten Kleijne.

Working with the guys from Triangle was great from the get-go, as we connected on the same musical preference from the start. Which also translated into the creation of these artworks, which are made in a style I personally prefer to work in as well. The entirety of it all reflecting their story.

→ Triangle band page on Facebook

The graphic design of “Triangle — Alert & Alive” was made by Maarten Kleijne: Maarten Kleijne.

I’ve made a complete custom WordPress site, that’s fully responsive and optimized for display on any and all (mobile) devices. Also including several integrations with third-party services such as CDBaby and YouTube. All to create an amazing online band website experience.

→ John Calon website

The graphic design of “John Calon — Wanted This Forever” was made by Maarten Kleijne: Maarten Kleijne.

YoungWorks commissioned me to create the A1 poster design for the August edition (2014) of this posterzine. The theme for this issue was “patterns”, specifically the patterns in the fur of several animals. One of the larger articles in this posterzine was about feline animals, which we chose as main topic for the poster design. They specifically wanted a photo manipulation artwork for this issue, along the lines of my “The Odds” piece.

It’s been a huge privilege for me to work for the Dutch WNF and their LifeGuard program this way. I’d like to thank Elsje, Natasja, biologist Geert-Jan and the other lovely folk of YoungWorks and the WNF for making this possible. Knowing this poster ends up in the hands of ± 20.000 kids and will probably adorn at least a few walls is certainly a neat bonus.

The graphic design of “WNF LifeGuard” was made by Maarten Kleijne: Maarten Kleijne.

→ Tim Pourbaix band website → Bandcamp page

The graphic design of “Tim Pourbaix — River Well” was made by Maarten Kleijne: Maarten Kleijne.

For the release of his record I designed a 12″ vinyl sleeve, cd design, 6 unique poster prints, business cards and a t-shirt artwork. Like a said; an entire package of promotional materials.

I was so stoked to work on this project since it embodied such a wide variety of print types. It allowed me to truly create a visual identity for this record that we would spread across all of its materials. And we did, Ryan and I worked closely on forming the artwork for his record and I was able to give it a consistent look.

The photographic material I was provided with was shot by Nicolas De Miranda and was truly amazing. It definitely formed a solid basis for the final design.

→ Amateur Blonde Music website → Bandcamp page

The graphic design of “Amateur Blonde Music” was made by Maarten Kleijne: Maarten Kleijne.

This cd packaging consists of a digipack with a pocket in which the 8-paged booklet is placed. In all the artwork I focused heavily on the terms: nature, hypnotic and trancy. Those terms probably describe the music and its other-worldly vibe best.

The band’s description of this record:

…earth, water, air and fire. It is about the world around us. It is also about ourselves. It is about our longing to transcend our individuality and feel connected to nature. Our inspiration lies in age old shamanistic roots of Turkish tribes and their raw trance music.

We have treated these ancient roots with an electronic approach, looking for a new sound. We have taken old grooves as a point of departure, and added a light touch. As a result, there is both joy and intensity in this album.

→ Baraná band website → Baraná Facebook page

The graphic design of “Baraná — Elektro Shaman” was made by Maarten Kleijne: Maarten Kleijne.

Yesterday’s Cub approached me to design, in their words; a ‘proper dark artwork’. For more about Yesterday’s Cub and the first record you can visit the Facebook page.

You can also take a look at the official music video that was made for one of the tracks on this record.

The graphic design of “Yesterday’s Cub — and if I had Paws to Produce with..” was made by Maarten Kleijne: Maarten Kleijne.

This project started out with a design for the digisleeve cd release and after I finished that they asked me to design the 12" vinyl edition as well. It was an amazing project to work on and I was stoked when Rob and his label commissioned me for it. This was also the first time I had the opportunity to create a 12" vinyl design for an actual physical release.

This project provided me with a great and interesting challenge, because they wanted to capture the genuine Blue Note style, a challenge which enabled me to show my versatility as a freelance cd designer. In order to do that I made a small case study on Reid Miles, another legend whose work served as a huge inspiration for this project.

The album has been out on vinyl and cd for a while now and it even took some nice spots in the Dutch music charts. For more information about Rob Mostert and his album ‘Englewood Cliffs Sessions’ you can visit his website. If you’re a jazz fan and maybe even a vinyl lover you should totally check it out.

The graphic design of “Rob Mostert — Englewood Cliffs Sessions” was made by Maarten Kleijne: Maarten Kleijne.

The band basically gave me a free hand on the artwork, for which I stuck to a typically heavy and distorted image. I have to give much thanks to Hydro74 (Joshua M. Smith), who provided me with his unique “Dirty Sanchez” type face that perfectly fitted the cd design and music as a logo. After making several type treatments we felt this one was just spot on.

For more about the band you can visit their Facebook page.

The graphic design of “The Rabbit Hole Project — 4M” was made by Maarten Kleijne: Maarten Kleijne.

Petra Berger is a renowned artist from the Netherlands and well known in the opera/musical genre. According to her biography her vocal capacities are often compared to those of Andrea Bocelli and Céline Dion. With this new album her discography houses a total of 5 albums. Prior to the release of her new album she held a live concert on national television.

Designing this artwork was excitingly challenging in a couple of ways. First and foremost being the actual music and genre, which was a new territory for me. Another being the initial photograph I had to work with; a close-up of Petra in which parts of her head and hair were cut off at 3 of the 4 sides. I did however have total creative freedom because it started out as a pitch, which allowed me to come up with this result. While working on the artwork I focused on two terms of which I was told were key factors for the music of Petra Berger and her tour, namely: romance and dreamy.

When I started working on the album design and booklet I received an amazing set of photographs made by Otto van den Toorn, which were great to work with. So the album design was less challenging than the initial artwork for the promo-flyers/tour posters (and the front of the album).

It was an absolutely interesting project to work on. Knowing that these tour posters and promo-flyers were going to be hung and posted all over the Netherlands was quite awesome as well. I was mostly baffled by the A0 sized version of this tour poster, it was the first time I physically held a print I created on such a huge size. Considering that this project started out as a pitch; it truly went beyond my expectations when they told me they wanted to use the artwork for the cd packaging design as well.

For more about Petra Berger, her tour and the album you can visit the official website.

The graphic design of “Petra Berger — Touched by Streisand” was made by Maarten Kleijne: Maarten Kleijne.

As Andrew puts it:

The album itself is an airy look at where he’s been with music for the past few years and feeling the urge for change. That last part is also one of the things that caused the project to evolve into something different as it progressed. A fairly neurotic piece, ‘f i n d’ is his most spaced, progressive project. It should float with you up and beyond, with a few rocks in between.

For the artwork I decided to approach a natural feeling and underline that spaced and progressive feeling with an overall minimalistic vibe. I created the logotype of Andrew’s initials and shaped it like a solid rock coming from the ground. During the project Andrew acclaimed a strong affection for macro imagery and the concept behind that, which we related to the cd design. You can see most of those hints in the front and back covers. The album contains something of a two-part journey which I reflected in the interior and exterior covers and their specific alternative coloring.

So why revamp the original album design?

Well, to answer that I wrote an in-depth article about it. Quite fast after the release of this portfolio-item I was commissioned to write an extensive case study and tutorial, for which I chose to use this artwork as topic. Interested in seeing how and why I created this artwork the way that I did? Read my case study about it on the GoMediaZine.

The graphic design of “Andrew Danso — f i n d” was made by Maarten Kleijne: Maarten Kleijne.

It’s a very personal album reflecting several things; like their atheist viewpoints and dislike to religious belief, sad events from 2 of the band members, general politics as well as their liberal views and their own rationalizations. All pretty daunting and heavy stuff.

A quick thank you from Tera:

We felt that your concepting was exceptional. It translated our ideas from words, to a dynamic, breathing image, that in every way was much more than we’d thought of. The sense of atmosphere that both images have reflect the veins in our music, and we are simply delighted with the result. Thanks Maarten — Tera

→ Tera band MySpace

The graphic design of “Tera — Forerunner” was made by Maarten Kleijne: Maarten Kleijne.

The concept behind it all was that of a magical secret forest, which you are drawn to through the ferocious beats of the Aguida. It is a journey through Ayaovi’s land of birth and the village of Bé. The idea was to visualize that magical forest through a lot of greens with an illustrative style. The record was released as a jewel case cd.

For more about Ayaovi Kokousse and his record you can visit the Forêt Sacrée Obouibé website.

The graphic design of “Ayaovi Kokousse — La voix d’Aguida” was made by Maarten Kleijne: Maarten Kleijne.

All tracks on the album are related to solving problems and the ways and thinking methods we use for that. In life there are six different proverbial thinking hats and Andrew chose the blue one for his album. So I started working with that concept and ended up using the jigsaw as key element.

To better explain the album and artwork, Andrew wrote a synopsis for me to place:

As difficult as it may be for my-self to appoint a generic standpoint onto my own work, I can safely suggest that this album (being instrumental) was written within a period of sparseness. Specifically, certain problems had arisen and I had solved them, eventually; ‘them’ being sociological issues — without giving too much away. Solving the issues became so common, they all re-in-animated each other, and on hindsight it felt like specific formulas were created for each problem to solve. This album reflects that, in that one of my biggest outlets for the current topic was writing instrumental music — hence I’m not very good at solving problems. Also most of the titles will reflect that formulaic ‘feel’.

Thoughts on the image itself; I enjoy the wild contrast, the unraveling of a jigsaw has, to solving an issue and putting the pieces together — it reflects the fact that my problem solving is blank, so much so that it creates problems. I enjoy the seeming modern look the image has, it sort of stands to be something of further intelligence (the bright light beyond the puzzles spectrum; a microcosm of the irrational belief held by so many within the spectrum) — the different shades of blue relate heavily to the album title. “Blue Hat Thinking” stands for control, an overview of the process of what’s going on… meta-cognition, that kind of thing. Confused? I am. Thanks Maarten.

→ Andrew Danso MySpace → Andrew’s weblog

The graphic design of “Andrew Danso — Blue Hat Thinking” was made by Maarten Kleijne: Maarten Kleijne.

The most challenging aspect of this project was the very limited time-frame I was given for it. Fortunately I was able to pull it off and the client was very satisfied with the result. So that was quite exciting for both me and the client.

This music genre was outside my personal comfort zone, so that provided me with another test of my versatility as a cd designer. Much like my work for Petra Berger and Rob Mostert.

The graphic design of “L Rock — Return to the Self” was made by Maarten Kleijne: Maarten Kleijne.

My main focus was to give the entire piece a natural feeling. My interpretation to the theme “Awakening” was that of an object in growth — much like a flower — and I visually expressed that by transmogrifying the individual.

The graphic design of “Transmogrify” was made by Maarten Kleijne: Maarten Kleijne.

I had a featured spot in the design show at Weapons of Mass Creation Festival in 2011, which is ideal for getting fantastic exposure. As you can imagine I was super stoked when I heard this awesome news. On June 11-12 of 2011 a few pieces of my work were exhibited at the WMC Fest design show alongside the work of 19 other artists from all around the world. Our work was exhibited in the Wall Eye Gallery in Cleveland Ohio, USA.

I’m still very proud that my work was exhibited at such an awesome event. My many thanks go out to the great people of Go Media — and Jeff Finley in particular — for making this happen.

If you’re interested in reading more about the WMC fest of 2011 you should check out the founder’s recap by Jeff Finley. There are a bunch of other recaps from people who attended as well, those are listed on the WMC Fest website. I’d like to point out the one by Chris Hoenigmann because he was kind enough to take a shot of my work and link to my site. Thanks a lot Chris, I appreciate it!

There’s also this short film recap on the WMC Fest 2011. My name and work is also shown in this video (04:38), which (I think) is totally awesome:

The graphic design of “Crossing the Rubicon” was made by Maarten Kleijne: Maarten Kleijne.

I had this artwork printed on A1 format (60x85cm) and pasted on 5mm of foam. Seeing my work on such a format and amidst the work of 112 other artists was absolutely incredible. The exposition was a big success and it provided me with the opportunity to meet many other artists from my hometown. This was the first time that my work was showcased in an exposition, which made it all very exciting.

Some other exciting related news was that the Dutch Advanced Photoshop magazine picked up on it and posted a mailbox feature about my artwork and the exposition in their April issue of 2011.

Promoting digital art locally.

The reason I participated in this exposition was to promote myself and digital art in general amongst the local artists and the art platform of Veenendaal. Like I said: I specifically made this surreal digital artwork for the exposition. I wanted it to be something worth talking about, something that revealed more details each time you would look more closely at it and something that could be interpreted differently by everyone. It turned out to be very interesting, I’ve received many questions and comments on it during the times I was present at the exposition. The question I was asked mostly was: “How did you make this?” Which ultimately led me to my goal of promoting digital art.

More into the “Delusion” artwork itself

I wanted this to be a powerful and darker piece. Reflecting a form of struggle we individually cope with, an entrapment in ourselves. I tried to reflect that by blending the heads together, displaying a persona wrestling with various emotions. As I often do I did try to twist the entire thing so that it can be interpreted differently. Here’s a small selection of words I picked from Andrew Danso’s review in which he describes this artwork insanely close to my original concept:

I think what you say here is awesome — that we’re torn each day by this dark light, good evil co-existence. We’re entrapped by the way it makes us feel, but ultimately it’s what makes us who we are.

The graphic design of “Delusion” was made by Maarten Kleijne: Maarten Kleijne.

Working directly together with a photographer has been very interesting because it provided me with unique photographic material. The process behind this piece was similar to the one behind my Perpetual Queen artwork; in both cases the source image was made by a photographer on which I then unleashed my skills as a designer. The beauty of a project like this is that — in my opinion — it provides the individuals involved with a brand new perspective and end result. A result which I am very excited about again this time.

Like I also did when releasing Perpetual Queen; I decided to post up a little case study of the progress behind this artwork. Check out our project page on Behance if you’re interested in seeing how this artwork was built up.

The graphic design of “Cocaina + Infection” was made by Maarten Kleijne: Maarten Kleijne.

Not only did I want to work around a different concept, I also wanted to create a piece with a little more purpose then just a random new personal artwork. I felt that it was about time I took it to another level by applying to join the Heartsurge art collective. So I created this artwork for the collective was officially made an artist member.

The Heartsurge collective is a group of visual artists who work together on themed exhibitions every few months, creating unique high quality digital art for each exhibition. Being a member of the group and creating work for these exhibitions will definitely give my personal artworks more ‘purpose’. Aside from that it’s just fantastic to work alongside or in collaboration with the other artists of the collective and help grow each other’s potential as a visual artist, which are some of the reasons why I joined them.

The graphic design of “Novgorod” was made by Maarten Kleijne: Maarten Kleijne.

I’ve had a blast working with Jenaro and I’m very excited about the result we came up with. Jenaro obviously was responsible for the photography and with a wonderful set of images in hand I made this poster design. The beauty of a collaboration like this is that I get to work with unique images which automatically makes the end piece unique as well.

As a little extra I decided to post up a little case study of the progress this artwork went through, Jenaro also posted some images of the progress from his side. If you’re interested in all that then check out our project page on Behance.

The graphic design of “Perpetual Queen” was made by Maarten Kleijne: Maarten Kleijne.

The graphic design of “The Odds” was made by Maarten Kleijne: Maarten Kleijne.

This design is more or less based on a musical part by IQ, it’s my visual interpretation of the story and world they sketch.

In this infernal chorus
He follows where I lead him under the ground
Who watches he who watches? — IQ

The graphic design of “Subterranean” was made by Maarten Kleijne: Maarten Kleijne.

Pseudo Silk Kimono

To give the song some more credit in my own way; I named this piece after the track “Pseudo Silk Kimono” by Marillion (from their album: Misplaced Childhood). I actually found this name ‘somewhat’ relevant to the artwork, which gave it a more complete touch for me. I guess you could see it as a fan-made artwork.

ARTR

After I published the Pseudo Silk Kimono print I was commissioned by ARTR (a Dutch digital art community) to create a tutorial piece for a similar artwork. Considering that I hadn’t done this before I gladly accepted the challenge. Personally, it was a very interesting project and good learning experience for me. Aside from tutorial itself I decided to offer a wallpaper pack of this piece as a little extra.

All of that has unfortunately been taken down after they decided to stop running the blog. The artwork I made will of course remain available for glances and prints.

The graphic design of “Pseudo Silk Kimono & ARTR” was made by Maarten Kleijne: Maarten Kleijne.

I had chosen a unique layout, compared to others, by designing it in a cd booklet format. The end result of it was awesome. Chosing a cd booklet made the magazine fit more closely to myself as a designer for music.

If you want to view samples from all of the pages in this personal identity magazine, hop on by this project page on my Behance profile.

The graphic design of “Personal identity magazine” was made by Maarten Kleijne: Maarten Kleijne.